home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Night Owl 6
/
Night Owl's Shareware - PDSI-006 - Night Owl Corp (1990).iso
/
020a
/
ansip21b.zip
/
BBS.TXT
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1991-07-09
|
7KB
|
189 lines
A FEW POINTERS FOR BBS USERS
---------------------------------------------
Entering an ANSI message on a BBS
---------------------------------
1. Create your ANSI file in advance.
2. Make the line length of your ANSI file no longer than 65
characters. Line lengths longer than this may not be
compatible with some BBS's.
3. Enter your music strings where desired while still retaining
a line length of 65. Carraige returns within the music string
will be ignored by ANSIPLAY when playing the music.
4. For public messages, you may want to make the music strings
invisible so that user's who don't have an ANSI file viewer
can use DOS's TYPE command without the music strings
messing up the display. (See ANSIPLAY.DOC for information
on how to do this.)
5. Before sending your ANSI message, in some cases you may want
to add a note saying something like "For ANSIPLAY viewer".
The reason being...some ANSI viewing programs do not support
music strings. Some do support music strings, but only as
a one-liner string at the end of the message, not if the music
is interweaved into the message. Additionally, ANSIPLAY is
the originator of SOUND codes. To my knowledge, there is not
other ANSI viewer that support SOUND codes.
6. There are two ways of transferring the file while you're
on-line:
a) You can select "Enter a message" from the Menu
-or-
b) If your BBS has a door which creates mail packets,
you can enter the message with your off-line mail
reader in advance, then upload it via the door
while you're on-line.
TO ENTER A MESSAGE FROM THE BBS MENU
------------------------------------
Two things must be in order before you can "upload" a message into
the message base.
a) Your communications software must be set so that
ASCII uploads do NOT strip the high bit. Stripping
will make a mess of your ANSI message.
b) The BBS you are uploading to must also have the same
setting. If you are unsure, you might try sending an
ANSI message to yourself (Receiver-Only) to test it.
-1-
To upload the message, select "Enter a message" from the menu.
Enter all the information TO:, SUBJECT:, etc. At this point
some BBS's will ask you if you want to "submit prepared text?".
If so, answer yes. Otherwise, at the prompt where you would
normally begin typing in a message, use your file transfer ASCII
protocol (usually Page Up invokes this) and the file will be
uploaded into the message area. Be sure to "Save" the message
before logging off.
TO ENTER A MESSAGE USING AN OFF-LINE MAIL READER
------------------------------------------------
For those of you who don't know what an off-line mail reader is,
here's a brief description...
Instead of reading your messages while you're on-line with the
BBS, some BBS's have a Mail door which allows you to create a
what is called a mail packet. A mail packet is simply a file
that you can download which contains all the messages you
select. You would first set up a configuration which tells
the door which conferences you want messages from, etc.
Then you download the mail packet. The mail packet is then
read by using an off-line mail reader. The mail reader will
decompress your messages, allow you to save your replies, and
several other features. Then you can call the BBS back and upload
your replies file to the door. The door will then post the replies
to the message base.
This is the most convenient way to do it. You also don't need
to worry about the 8th bit getting stripped. And can use unlimited
time to read your packet and prepare your replies.
The mail reader to use would depend on the mail door you are using.
If the mail door creates .QWK files, I recommend a very good mail
Shareware reader-program called "SLMR" (Silly Little Mail Reader)
by Greg Hewgill. Whichever mail reader program you decide on, read
the documentation on how to import a file (ANSI) into your reply.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Reading an ANSI message from your off-line mail reader
------------------------------------------------------
Some off-line mail readers (Like SLMR) have an option to animate
ANSI escape sequences. For mail readers that do not have this
option or do not support music/sound codes, ANSIPLAY can be used
with the /D option.
The procedure might be as follows...
Using your off-line mail reader, "Save" the message to a temporary
file.
Look at the message to be sure the ESC characters have not been
stripped or replaced with an alternate character. Also that any
music strings are suffixed with the music note character CHR$(14).
-2-
If necessary, use a hot-key on your mail reader to load the
temporary file into your text editor. If your program has a
search/replace feature, this will be the fastest way to replace
the alternate characters with ESC characters CHR$(27). Be sure to
save any changes. Then return to the mail reader.
Now use a hot-key to ANSIPLAY the file. The hot-key might be setup
to say something like: ANSIPLAY C:\DOWN\TEMP.TXT /D
After the file is done displaying/playing, the /D option will tell
ANSIPLAY to ask you if you'de like to delete the temporary file.
If you decide to keep it, you will be given a chance to change the
filename. (Note: if the ESCape key is hit during display, the
options to delete/rename will be bypassed).
[For messages that are 2 or more message screens, do the same exact
procedure. Most off-line mail readers will allow you to append
the saved message to your "save-filename" rather than overwritting
it. You may want to edit the file before ANSIPLAYing it to remove
the message headers/taglines from the 2nd, 3rd, etc. messages.]
Again the procedure is:
1. Save message to temporary file
2. If necessary, edit the file
3. ANSIPLAY the file with /D option
-3-